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Jawless Creature Had the World's Sharpest Teeth
ananyo writes "An extinct primitive marine vertebrate had the sharpest dental structures ever known — with tips just one-twentieth of the width of a human hair, but able to apply pressures that could compete easily with those from human jaws. The razor-sharp teeth belonged to conodonts, jawless vertebrates that evolved some 500 million years ago in the Precambrian eon and went extinct during the Triassic period, around 200 million years ago. The creatures roamed the planet for longer than any other vertebrate so far–– and despite their lack of jaws, they were the first creatures to evolve teeth (abstract)."
Is there any compensation that has to be applied to fossils which are over 200 million years old? Such as erosion etc?
Well there is a reason they were extinct. Teeth that sharp would 1. Either dull down quickly (depends on how long it lived) 2. Be fragile enough to break after catching prey.
of this eel-like creature... looks like we don't know much about them aside from their teeth?
Meteorites suck. I mean blow.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Here are some speculative drawings of the creatures. Getting caught in a swarm of thrashing sharp dental structures would make a good horror film.
Having evolved to chew through solid rock... They bored into the earth, and have evolved to make sustainable life energy in the heat below the earth's mantle... What's that noise?... Come closer to the campfire.
Gently reply
You know, 300 million years is a pretty good run. *golf clap*
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water ... JAWLESS!
Breakfast served all day!
Can one of the /. editors ask Ebert if his teeth have gotten any sharper?
Aren't these living creatures related?
If you reply, do so only to what I explicitly wrote. If I didn't write it, don't assume or infer it.
with tips just one-twentieth of the width of a human hair, but able to apply pressures that could compete easily with those from human jaws
The size of the surface area has no bearing on the amount of pressure that can be applied because pressure is force per unit area.
""An extinct primitive marine vertebrate had the sharpest dental structures ever known "
It still couldn't chew my wife's meat loaf.
I don't get it
Because you don't even understand life itself! Life itself is completely unknown to one such as you.
Wow! There are dark rumors about you circulating all over the grapevine. They were started by... Komen Bryce himself!
The rumor's text? "Anonymous Coward is misign a few gigabit on his puter... bai2u... >_>"
I know, I know. Your very soul has been shattered. You are a mere shell of what you once were. You're nothing. You can just turn to dust and die now!
Conodonts are very usefull for dating rocks, i use to work for the Maquarie University Center of Ecostratigraphy and Palaeobiology where we would dissolve tons (literally) of limestone with acetic acid to study these and other fossils.
I still don't get it...
Seriously, the article has some major fuck-ups: ... and about everytwhere else FEA/FEM is the standard method for simulating anything where you have a mesh :D ... rodents do exactly the same, the way their teeth close makes them grind against each other, creating a continuously sharp edge (sorry if I described that badly, EN is not my native language)
"finite-element analysis — a method commonly applied to model the effects of physical forces on aeroplanes"
"To overcome this, the animals seem to have been able to re-sharpen and repair worn teeth throughout their lives — a quality that other vertebrates have failed to evolve"
Is jawless and has pretty sharp (figurative) teeth.
Given that it had no jawbone, it only makes sense that the teeth be sharp to still "get thru the point".
Guess we now know the answer to question of what came first, the teeth or the mouth?